Friday, May 20, 2016

Along the Garden Path

I have spent the time since I cast off my Colourmart Design Entry Shawl in my garden. We have a lot of honeysuckle that volunteered to grow through the trees and flowerbeds, at the edge of my patio...in fact every where there was a scrap of dirt there is honeysuckle growing.

You wouldn't necessarily think that having a sweet smelling, flowering plant growing rampant in your garden was a bad thing. But in this case it is, because it is an invasive species! Not only does it smother native plants in area woodlands (and we live far enough out that there are protected areas of lands to allow native species to grow within walking distance of our house!) it also smothers the plants that I intentionally put in my garden in the first place.

Although, having read some things about the flowering pear tree that is in my front garden, an intentionally planted tree might have to go as well!

You might wonder what spending time in my garden has to do with knitting. It's a tangled path, but a path it is!

Also fairly close to where I live is The Franklin Park Conservatory, not close enough to walk, but close enough to drive to and spend a relatively peaceful afternoon meandering along their garden paths. Their gardens are beautiful and much more well maintained than my own, which as I mentioned is terribly overgrown right now!

Of course, anything that strikes my fancy can be turned into a knitting pattern. TOB wasn't sure that a walk through the culinary, herb and fragrance gardens could be turned into a sock, but....... What is it that my kids say these days? Challenge Accepted!

Presenting : Along the Garden Path.

Materials:Unplanned PeacockTwisty Sock, Superwash Merino/Nylon 400 yards in Candy Apple.Size 1 (US) 2.25mm double pointed or circular needles for knitting in the round.Cable needle, stitch markers and a large eyed tapestry needle for grafting the toe and weaving in ends.

This pattern is charted, no line by line written instructions are included.

I have become a real fan of Unplanned Peacock Studio's yarns since discovering them at Wool Gathering a year or so ago. Twisty Sock is well balanced, has beautiful color choices and makes a nice firm fabric, suitable for texture, cables and lace. So I put all three in.

Texture for the paths themselves, cables for the vines that grew through some of the gardens and leaves for the plants that were just emerging from the newly planted beds the last time we visited.

You can pick up your copy at my Ravelry Store, and if you subscribed to the newsletter or visit my Facebook Page you can even get a pretty hefty discount using the promo code.
I also have to thank Andrea of BadCat Designs for help with editing some of the photo's! And of course the test knitters who made sure that when I copied and pasted in the charts, all the stitches carried over in the places they were supposed to be. They were all so helpful when that wasn't the case.

I can't tell you how much fun I had coming up with the pattern for these socks, or how quickly they seemed to knit up for me! I mentioned to a friend that they are certainly a "fickle knitter special" with a little bit of everything I love going on. Texture, lace, and cables in a sock that seemed to just jump off my needles!

The only thing that would make them better, in my opinion, would be if they were in my sock drawer. But if you are a regular reader you know what happens when TDQ agrees to model. She tells me to wave goodbye to the knitted goods as soon as the photo shoot is over!